Santa Clara Voters Wary of Stadium Campaign

After striking out twice in San Francisco, Giants owner Bob Lurie is pitching to voters in Santa Clara County a plan for a sleek new baseball stadium. But many here say the millionaire is throwing them a curve.

With a day left before the election, polls show Silicon Valley voters overwhelmingly rejecting the stadium, casting further doubt on where the Giants will play ball in 1992.

The campaign to win the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of voters here has been filled with twists that underscore how politics are different in this valley of silicon chips and computer whiz kids.

Silicon Valley’s corporate titans staunchly oppose the stadium, and outgoing San Jose Mayor Tom McEnery, a popular political force for the last eight years, also refuses to stump for the Giants.

By contrast, in San Francisco, when voters turned down similar measures in 1987 and 1989, big business had heavily endorsed the stadium issue and then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein and current Mayor Art Agnos had barnstormed nonstop for weeks drumming up support.

But talk of recession and the fact that county residents would foot much of the stadium’s bill has turned the issue into a David vs. Goliath match.

“I love baseball,” said Lorne Smyth, founder of CATS, an acronym for Committee Against The Stadium. “But when Will Clark gets a salary of $4 million a year, and when I’m asked to pay for a place where he can play, there’s something wrong there. Hey, I’m no sucker.”

The stadium measure requires voters to tax themselves an extra 1% on their gas, electric, water, sewer, garbage, telephone and cable television bills.

An average family’s utility bill would be raised by $15 a year, with the increased taxes pulling in $15 million annually, say ballpark proponents.

“The utility tax is perceived as a tax on a necessity for a luxury,” conceded Rick DiNapoli, a principal backer of the plan who acknowledged that the measures will have a difficult time passing.

As of last Thursday, the ballpark measures were losing by a 25-percentage-point margin, according to a San Jose Mercury News poll.

The projected $152-million, 45,000-seat stadium would be on a 148-acre site, one mile north of the Great America Theme Park, near California 237 and U.S. 101. The Santa Clara city venue is now wetlands and a former landfill.

To pass, the complicated plan requires voters in five cities to approve ballpark issues in four separate measures.

Tuesday’s vote is critical. After losing the two ballpark measures to San Francisco voters, Lurie has vowed that he will either sell the team or move to another location if Santa Clara voters turn the issue down.

“We simply will not go back to the voters again,” Giants Vice President Corey Busch said in an interview. “And there’s no way we can continue at Candlestick.”